rich_jacko

I love my godson's imagination.

He's figured out that telling me stories is an effective way of delaying going to bed. Last night, he was telling me all about Evil Santa.

Unlike Good Santa, who lives at the North Pole and delivers presents to sleeping children, Evil Santa lives at the South Pole, breaks into people's houses when they are asleep, and steals their presents.

Good Santa is clever, and worked out how to fool Evil Santa by hiding presents in stockings. Evil Santa thought they were just socks and didn't steal them. That is why we leave out stockings for Good Santa on Christmas Eve.

This story has a happy ending. Luckily, there were Night Detectives on the lookout for Evil Santa. In 2001 they finally managed to capture him and put him in prison. While he was in prison, Evil Santa thought about the presents he had stolen, and it made him feel sad. So eventually he was let out of prison and now he lives at the North Pole, where he helps Good Santa deliver presents. (Nice to see the rehabilitation system working effectively!)

Since Evil Santa no longer lives at the South Pole, some dinosaurs have moved in and live there now...

[It was at this point I sensed we were going off on a new tangent. I suggested the Bug tell me about the dinosaurs another day, and he should go and clean his teeth.]

A new Jurassic Park film should show us something we've not seen before. This time there's two big hooks. Firstly, as the poster tells us, "The park is open". It's great to see Hammond's dream finally realised, with 20,000 tourists enjoying dinosaur rides, train tours, T-Rex feeding time, and the Mosasaurus Sea-World experience. I want to go!

Of course, "Ooh, ah" is how it always starts. But then later there's running and screaming. That's where the second hook comes in, a genetically-modified "Indominus Rex" designed to be bigger, badder and cooler than a T-Rex. Because that's such a great idea.

( But is the film any good? )

After the success of last year's trip, I joined the Nightingales again for an Easter visit to London. No Legoland this time, but still plenty of awesome! (Yes, the girls are still singing that song ;o) )

Here's a full write-up and photos( under this cut )

All-in-all, it was a very busy, fun-filled (and tiring!) six days away. I have felt well loved, with three Nightingirls constantly fighting over my attention and who gets to hold my hand :o)

Plenty of stuff in London still to do...!

Tonight was the long-awaited Walking With Dinosaurs: The Arena Spectacular.
(You may just have noticed I was going to this from previous posts of mine.)

I met up beforehand with soul_rider, longhairedhippy, Evie, neil_h, clarestar and bez_loves_pie for food at Prezzo. The service wasn't desperately quick, but that was okay as we had plenty of time and they did give us some damn fine pizza.

Then we collected grok_mctanys and longrat + family and wandered into the Arena. We found our entire row of seats. An announcement warned us that dinosaurs objected to flash photography and the consequences would be bad...for us. And also there would be no mobile phone signal for 100 million years :o)

The show was absolutely fantastic, featuring shifting continents, little hatchlings, battles with an Allosaur, inflatable trees, a pair of Brachiosaurs that practically filled the Arena, a forest fire accomplished through lighting and sound effects - and that was just the first act!

I was sat next to Evie, explaining some of what was going on. She seemed to enjoy herself immensely, despite being a bit fidgety. I popped out in the interval (to go to the loo and to buy dino tat) and was practically bowled over by B and Roozle as they jumped up to thank me for getting tickets, so I guess they were both having fun too!

Act 2 was devoted to the Cretaceous period, and very pretty it was too. Highlights included a soaring journey over continents and the ocean, a four dinosaur grudge match including a full-size T-Rex, and the (almost literally) blinding meteorite finale.

A palaeontologist narrator guided us through the whole show. It was very well staged, with proper drama, some clever misdirection and genuine surprises. Unless you were specifically looking, the mechanics and human performers were barely noticeable. Disbelief was well and truly suspended.

After the final bows were taken we had no small amount of RAH!-ing outside before jumping on a heaving tram home.

I think we all agreed that (as well as making us regress to being about eight years old) the show was well worth the entry price and thoroughly recommended to anyone :oD


Photos